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Wisconsin Guard Gets Order for Largest Deployment Since WWII

American Forces Press Service

MADISON, Wis. , Sept. 10, 2008  The 32nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team of the Wisconsin Army National Guard will deploy as many as 3,500 soldiers for an active-duty mission in Iraq in what officials said will be the largest operational deployment of Wisconsin National Guard forces since World War II.

A mock Iraqi villager, portrayed by Army Staff Sgt. Brian Varn, is surprised and captured by members of the 132nd Brigade Support Battalion, Wisconsin Army National Guard, as soldiers practice urban combat at a Fort McCoy, Wis., military urban training site Aug. 12, 2008. The unit is part of the 32nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, which is deploying to Iraq in early 2009. U.S. Army photo by Larry Sommers, Wisconsin National Guard(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available.

Notification to soldiers, who had been on alert since December, began Sept. 5. Augmentees from six other units will deploy with the brigade.

The mobilization is expected to last about a year. The Wisconsin Army Guard units will report for duty at their local armories in mid-February and then train at a U.S. Army installation in Texas for about two months before deploying overseas. The soldiers will then spend about 10 months of the year-long mobilization in Iraq.

With an authorized strength of about 3,450 soldiers, the 32nd Brigade has units in 36 Wisconsin communities.

Although the combined authorized strength of units on the mobilization order is about 4,500 soldiers, no more than 3,500 will actually be mobilized to fill positions required for the unit’s missions, officials said.

Most of the 32nd Brigade’s subordinate units have been previously mobilized in the seven years since Sept. 11, 2001.

The 32nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team is descended from the 32nd “Red Arrow” Division, an infantry group formed of Wisconsin and Michigan Guardsmen serving in Texas in 1917. Called to active federal service again for World War I, the division earned its distinctive insignia -- a vertical red arrow through a horizontal red bar -- by piercing every enemy line it faced in four World War I campaigns: Alsace, Aisne-Marne, Oise-Aisne and Meuse-Argonne.

The Red Arrow Division was mobilized again in October 1940, more than a year before the U.S. entered World War II. Most of the division’s soldiers fought in the Southwest Pacific, where they played a key role in capturing the Papua New Guinea enemy stronghold at Buna which was, in early 1943, among the first U.S. ground forces victories in the Pacific Theater.

The division went on to fight in the Philippines and ended the war as part of the occupation force on the home islands of Japan. The 32nd Division logged a total of 654 days of continuous World War II combat -- more than any other U.S. Army division in any war. Parts of the division also fought in North Africa and Europe.

In October 1961, President John F. Kennedy called the 32nd Division to federal service during the Berlin crisis; the unit served until August 1962 at Fort Lewis, Wash., before returning to Wisconsin.

In 1967, the 32nd Division -- by then made up entirely of Wisconsin units -- was deactivated and reorganized as the 32nd Separate Infantry Brigade. In 1986, the 32nd Infantry Brigade was the first brigade-sized National Guard unit in the nation to deploy all its personnel and equipment overseas for a major NATO exercise, which was conducted annually in West Germany during much of the Cold War.

Because the 32nd Brigade and other affected units had been alerted for the upcoming mobilization since December, commanders have been conducting intensive additional training for their units for the past eight months. The units completed a longer-than-normal, three-week annual training at Fort McCoy, Wis., in August, and another three-week annual training period is planned for January in Florida.

Completing rigorous training requirements before units arrive at their mobilization training sites allows for one-year mobilization durations -- significantly shorter than the 16-to-18-month Army Guard mobilizations – with some even longer -- that were common before new Defense Department policies were announced in January 2007.

With this upcoming mobilization, more than 10,000 soldiers and airmen from the Wisconsin Army and Air National Guard — more than 100 percent of the Guard’s total force in the state — will have served on active duty since Sept. 11, 2001. This number exceeds 100 percent of the Guard’s current number of personnel because of multiple mobilizations for many soldiers and airmen, officials explained.

In addition to the mobilization of the 32nd Brigade Combat Team and six other units in February, another Wisconsin Army National Guard unit will be mobilized in the coming year. The 951st Sapper Company of Tomahawk and Rhinelander, with an authorized strength of about 100 soldiers, will be ordered to active duty at the end of November for a security mission in Afghanistan.

Another unit, Tomah-based Headquarters and Headquarters Detachment of the 732nd Combat Support Sustainment Battalion, is on alert for a possible mobilization in the spring. The unit has an authorized strength of about 75 soldiers.

Even after mobilization of the 32nd Brigade Combat Team and other units identified for mobilization in the coming year, the Wisconsin National Guard will still have more than 60 percent of its forces available in Wisconsin for any state emergency response that may be required, officials said. Upcoming mobilizations do not involve either of the Guard’s helicopter units or the state’s 54th Civil Support Team.

Most of the Wisconsin National Guard’s engineer units are also unaffected, and a 500-member rapid-reaction force remaining in Wisconsin maintains the Guard’s capability to provide a speedy security response anywhere in the state, officials said.